Honor’s New Partnership for Ultra-Personal Home Care

By Mary Kate Nelson | June 21, 2016

A Silicon Valley home care startup that’s no stranger to innovation is making moves to provide the most personalized care for each and every client.

San Francisco-based Honor has partnered with the National Parkinson Foundation, which has funded more than $189 million in Parkinson’s disease care, research and support services, to train its caregivers on the best ways to deliver in-home Parkinson’s disease care, the home care company announced Tuesday. The partnership will function similarly to the partnership Honor currently has with the American Cancer Society, which was announced in March.

As part of the new partnership, Honor will license NPF proprietary care guidance, as well as collaborate on research with the foundation to determine specific care protocols for Parkinson’s disease, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Honor’s head of care, told Home Health Care News.

“We want people to have the best care, and care for Parkinson’s is different than care for dementia or care for transplant recipients,” Ellis-Lamkins said.

Honor also hopes to offer support for the family members of clients who have Parkinson’s, which may include ensuring they have access to Parkinson’s disease support groups, Ellis-Lamkins said.

Additionally, Honor caregivers will be equipped with the Honor Care Pro App, which will have content from NPF as well as detailed recommendations for how to deliver long-term home care to clients with Parkinson’s disease.

“This is part of a continued effort to partner with the best minds in disease-related care and an amazing opportunity for Honor to bring the National Parkinson Foundation’s expert knowledge directly into homes through our Honor Care Pro App,” Honor co-founder and CEO Seth Sternberg said in a prepared statement.

The partnership is part of a strategy to provide the most customized care possible—which Honor believes is the highest-quality care possible, Ellis-Lamkins explained. With enough caregivers, each one can become an expert in a different condition—like cancer, Parkinson’s, or dementia, to name a few.

“With scale, you can actually provide the perfect caregiver for your family member,” Ellis-Lamkins said.

Honor, which raised $20 million from investors last year, has also made headlines for its decision to directly employ its caregivers, rather than working with them on an independent contractor basis.